What’s behind all these surprising numbers? I can’t say, but it’s hard not to notice that a decline in destructive behavior associated with peer pressure has happened at the same moment that the US became a fully wired nation.
Now that broadband access is nearly universal — 78% of homes, and that’s not counting all the schools and library and Wi-Fi hotspot connections available to most kids with minimal effort — restless youth don’t have to go along with whatever the local knuckleheads are up to.
They can find their community of likeminded souls online, and an unintended consequence of their tinkering with YouTube videos or playing “Call of Duty” with a buddy in Mexico City, they’re staying in. As a frustrated barman in England, where pubs have been closing in huge numbers, put it to The Economist, “Kids these days just want to live in their f- – – ing own little worlds in their bedrooms watching Netflix and becoming obese.” That sounds right, but at least no one ever got pregnant from eating Cheetos.
How are young people turning out politically? They’re liberal Democrats . . . who sometimes sound an awful lot like conservative Republicans.
I don’t really care whether or not they’re Republicans, as long as they’re vehemently not Democrats.
[Update a while later]
This seems related, somehow: How the Left got boring.
[Late-morning update]
Sorry, first link was broken. Should be fixed now.
Bill Simon and I are going to be on tomorrow, at noon Pacific, to discuss our ceremony to commemorate the first moon landing, on the 45th anniversary. Boy does that make me feel old.
I just got back. Saw a lot of old (in both senses of the word, unfortunately) friends. It was quite religious, at his Presbyterian church out on the peninsula. I hadn’t realized how devout he was. He seems to have a wonderful family. His younger son’s eulogy was part sermon. Also, it turns out that he is one of the attorneys who won the Hobby Lobby case.
A few switchbacks up we found a nice niche that would have been an excellent spot for a small bar; seems it had served that function once, as it had benches and something like a table. We chatted with some Brits who were also dying but cheerful about it. They’d met some donkeys coming down, and the lass astride one of them leaned over and said “Worst Day of my Life.”
We continued on, up the shite-strewn path. By “567 steps” they mean a step, then a yard of irregular, ankle-snapping stone, followed by another step, followed by a yard of irregular, ankle-snapping stone smeared with ordure, and so on. Another herd of donkeys, this one thicker than the last, and not particularly concerned with our presence. Suddenly you realized you had two options: you would be crushed against the wall by donkeys, or pushed over the side by donkeys. Neither seemed appealing, just like the growing belief you would either suffer failure of the heart or the kidneys.